The Ghosts of Spruce Hall
– as narrated by –
Jung

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Spruce Hall was one of the nicest dorms on campus but one of the last to fill up every year. On the forms for on-campus housing, students coming to State could specify their preferences: for roommates, for room placement, and even for building. And anyone who knew anything about State knew about the reputation of Spruce Hall: that it was haunted.

The most likely victims to end up at Spruce Hall were freshmen and foreign exchange students who had not yet heard about Spruce Hall’s reputation. Freshmen who were the children of alumni knew to avoid Spruce Hall; many out-of-state freshmen were not so lucky.

On paper, Spruce Hall seemed like an ideal place to live on campus. The rooms were spacious (for dorms, anyway). Unlike the regular dorms that shared showers and bathrooms for an entire hallway, the Spruce Hall residences had one bathroom suite for every two rooms. The building itself sat on the northern edge of campus, next to the student lounge, and it was on a very slight incline that gave it a breathtaking view of the rest of the campus. 

The one thing that set Spruce Hall apart from the rest of the dorms was the memorial in its lobby. Upon entering, one couldn’t help but notice it. Just to the left of the mailroom was a large mural that showed a group of beautiful young women, their smiles eternally fixed as they posed. Arms around each other, wearing matching State uniforms, every one of them was lovely, in the prime of her life, with glowing skin and shining eyes and glossy hair. 

Don’t let their sweet expressions of innocence fool you! The girls were from the rugby team, and half of them were Zeta sorority sisters. If you look closely at the mural, you’ll notice the thickness of their thighs and broadness of their shoulders, the way the fabric of their uniforms stretches against their skin. These girls were not dainty. They were all incredibly powerful women.

So what happened?

The year was 1982, and the rugby team had just swept the regionals. They had demolished the competition and were on their way to State. But it was a rainy night, a freak storm… and when the bus took the bridge out of the city just a little too fast, it slid over the guardrail and into the ravine below. Without anyone to witness the crash, no one even knew it had happened until the next morning when the bus failed to show up to the competition. The bodies were all recovered, but there were no survivors.

Spruce Hall had been the favored dormitory for those involved with women’s athletics, but after the mural was put up and strange things started to happen, it became less and less popular, eventually becoming everyone’s last choice. That meant it was largely populated by those who didn’t know better. It wasn’t just the rumored ghosts but the fact that everyone was so scared of the building that it made it difficult to bring anyone back to your dorm. The threat of ghosts was, for the students, second only to the threat of leaving school a virgin.

Legend has it that the team had “returned” to Spruce Hall and that they wandered the halls, searching for the two things they never got: the championship and an end to their virginity. If left out, sports equipment (especially rugby balls and helmets) would vanish or mysteriously move; the same went for underwear, particularly male underwear. Of course, this could just be a roommate trying to mess with you, but… well, some people are superstitious.

The two worst days of the year are said to be Halloween and the anniversary of the crash itself. On those two nights, the thin veil that separates the mortal world from the spiritual one is weakened, and the women become more powerful than ever, able to interact with their world for a brief time. Enraged at their impotence the rest of the year, they would come out with a vengeance and a blood-thirsty need for destruction.

On Halloween, most of the Spruce Hall residents, even the ones who say they aren’t superstitious, go and stay with a friend. It’s not hard to find a place to stay on Halloween; there are a ton of costume parties on campus, all-night haunted houses, and Greek house events galore. It says a lot that the people who live at Spruce Hall would rather spend Halloween night in a haunted house than in their own dorm!

But not Min-ho. Min-ho didn’t believe in ghosts, not at all. And the more he heard about the haunting of Spruce Hall, the more and more derisive he got.

A typical conversation for Min-ho on campus went like this:

“So, which dorm are you in?”

“Spruce Hall.”

“Oh my God. The haunted dorm?”

Min-ho would scoff and deny and refuse and argue that the dorm wasn’t haunted, that hauntings and ghosts don’t exist, that he had never, ever had an issue with Spruce Hall. But no matter how much he told everyone that they were being ridiculous, he could not stop people from giving him pitying looks when he said where he lived. 

Min-ho was a very handsome young man. He was short and broad-shouldered, with long, unkempt black hair and deep-set eyes. He was not conventionally attractive, but he had a strong sense of confidence that made up for it. He wore a single stud earring in his left ear, had a razor-thin mustache, and often had his hair fall into his eyes, and it gave him a rakish bad-boy look that many people found appealing. But despite this, he still couldn’t convince most girls to come back to his dorm room. Not when they found out that he lived in Spruce Hall. 

Nothing quite killed the mood like seeing that huge memorial mural in the lobby of the building. Everyone knew Spruce Hall was the place where romance went to die.

It irked him deeply and became an obsession. Within only a few months of beginning college, Min-ho had a singular goal: to convince everyone on the entire campus that there was no such thing as a curse, no such thing as a haunted building, and no such thing as a ghost.

It all came to a head in the days before Halloween.

“Hi, Min-ho. What have you got there?” I asked, falling into step with Min-ho on campus one blustery fall day. Min-ho was bowed under a heavy-looking backpack, a large metal case in one hand and a couple of long metal poles tucked behind his opposite arm.

“Recording equipment!” he replied breathlessly, sounding excited. He held out the metal case to me, and though I had not offered to take it, I felt bad for him and accepted it. As I expected, it was very heavy.

“Are you filming a movie?” I asked, confused. Min-ho was studying pre-med, and I wasn’t sure why he would be filming anything.

“No. I’m going to prove, once and for all, that Spruce Hall isn’t haunted. Halloween is this weekend–” he began.

“Oh, no! Are you serious? Min-ho, this isn’t a joke; you shouldn’t stay there on Halloween. It’s too dangerous,” I blurted. I knew immediately I had made a grave error; it was exactly the sort of thing that would only push Min-ho into wanting to do it anyway.

Sure enough, his fists bunched up into balls, and he shot me a very dirty look. “Dangerous? It’s not dangerous, Jung, and never has been! I’m going to show all the cowards on this campus that the only thing that’s scary is how superstitious and childish they all are. Ghosts! Psh!”

“It’s not just ghosts, Min,” I tried to reason with him. “It’s more than that. It’s not a made-up story; real people died.”

“Exactly. Very sad, but that’s life. That’s reality. People die. They don’t come back as ghosts, no matter how tragic their story is. What, don’t tell me you believe in cheonyeogwisin? What are you, my grandma?”

My cheeks heated up a little. I don’t believe in ghosts, not exactly, but… well, this was different. Spruce Hall had always had a menacing aura to me, and I wouldn’t be caught dead there. Especially not around Halloween.

I stopped in front of the door to try to give Min-ho his case back. He looked at me like I was crazy.

“What, you don’t even want to come in?”

“I’ve got to get back to my own dorm,” I said, shifting uncomfortably. Through the glass doors to the lobby, I could see the memorial mural of the rugby team, their faces fixed in those bright, uncanny smiles. The sun had washed out parts of the mural, so their rugby outfits had faded logos, making them look like they were all dressed in white.

“Fine, you scaredy-cat. Go run off; just wait and see. I’m going to spend Halloween night here. I’ll have the whole building to myself, and I’ll record it all, and I’ll show you there are no ghosts. You’ll all feel foolish when I’m through,” announced Min-ho grandly. When he grit his teeth and his hair flopped forward, he looked even more like some kind of anti-hero, and I wished him luck.

But I still didn’t want to put a toe into the lobby of Spruce Hall! As I turned, I could feel the unblinking eyes of the women in the mural staring, watching me go.

---

 

When Halloween came, Min-ho was ready. He had been hard at work, setting up cameras all over the dorm. Not just his room but the hallways and the lobby and the mail room. His roommate drew the line at having cameras in the bathroom.

The rest of Spruce Hall’s residents watched Min-ho’s efforts with mild amusement, but none of them offered to join him. As the sun traversed the sky and began its descent toward the horizon, casting long orange shadows across the autumn campus, everyone began to trickle out of the dorm, wishing Min-ho good luck, mostly ironically. He stood in the lobby by the mural, arms crossed and chin up, glaring at all of them. But no matter how hard he shamed them, no one, not even the newest and greenest freshman, would be caught dead in Spruce Hall overnight on Halloween. It was a long-standing campus tradition for the building to be cleared that night, and even the people who claimed not to believe in ghosts found somewhere else to stay.

By the time the campus’s street lamps had turned on and the last sliver of the sun had disappeared, the dorm was empty, leaving only Min-ho and his cameras behind.

He turned to the portrait of the women on the wall, examining their faces. They grinned back, trapped in their glee forever, awaiting the championship game that would never come.

“Well, ghosts! Do you want to begin the haunt now or later? I’m here all night, so there’s no need to rush!” Min-ho said. The painted ladies stared back smilingly, silently.

“Oh, so you’re shy? That’s okay! I can wait,” said Min-ho, and he swaggered off, whistling to himself. He strolled the empty halls, occasionally shouting just because he could. He was the only one there, and it was strange, to say the least. Normally the dorm was full of life and activity. Now, it was empty, and it was eerie to see. 

It was not that the dorm was “abandoned.” The lights in all of the hallways were on, and there were plenty of signs of life. In the common room, a hoodie was thrown over one of the couches, and a half-played card game was laid out on a table. Besides the cards, a few sandwich wrappers showed evidence of lives played out in the building. In fact, it would have been less strange for the building to be dark and dusty. Instead, it was sinisterly liminal, a place where people should have been and weren’t. As if they’d been chased away by an ominous presence.

“Here, ghostie-ghostie-ghostie!” called Min-ho boisterously as he strolled into the common room. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! … don’t you think it’s rude to hide from me after I went through all the trouble of setting up these cameras? Tch!”

Without warning, the sandwich wrappers on the table fluttered to the floor. Min-ho’s head turned sharply; suddenly seeing movement in this empty space was alarming. 

But it was probably just a draft. Right? It was cool outside because it was the end of October and the air conditioning wasn’t on; Min-ho couldn’t feel any air currents. But that didn’t mean anything. Perhaps the draft was over there.

Min-ho walked over and stuck a hand out to check. He felt nothing. He licked a finger and stuck it out, trying to get even the slightest hint of a breeze, but the air was perfectly still.

“…hmm.” Min-ho’s brow furrowed, and he contemplated the wrappers on the floor; after a moment, he picked them up and walked them over to a nearby garbage can.

There was a loud clatter in the hallway; Min-ho jumped, looking up. “Hello?” he called, walking to the door and peeking through the threshold. On the shiny tiled floor, polished to a mirror shine, lay the fire extinguisher. It was rolling back and forth a little, still rocking from its fall.

Min-ho went to it and checked the clamp on the wall that had held it. “This must be old,” he decided, picking up the fire extinguisher and putting it back into place. He gave it a few test tugs to make sure it was secure. It was; it was unclear how it had fallen. Perhaps a tiny earthquake? A settling of the foundation of the building? There must be a scientific–

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

From the common room, the microwave went off. Min-ho turned, confused, but then his expression changed to one of delight. Someone must have stayed behind! He was not the only sane person on campus; some other clever skeptic had also ignored all the warnings of ghosts and chosen to remain in Spruce Hall on Halloween night!

Min-ho walked briskly back to the common room. The microwave’s display was flashing DONE, but there was no one there.

“…hello? …Sam? …Koji? …Lawrence? Hey, whoever’s here, your food’s done!” called Min-ho. No one answered except for the microwave; it beeped again to indicate it was finished.

Min-ho walked over to open it and stop the beeping. Inside was a crumbled, steaming wad of empty sandwich wrappers.

“…huh?” Min-ho reached inside and picked them out; the edges of the paper wrappings were crisped. There were no sandwiches, only the wrappers. He turned them over, puzzled; he could have sworn he’d thrown these away.

He shook his head. He must just not have remembered correctly. People do strange things, sometimes, when they’re on autopilot.

He walked back to the trash can to throw them out, but as his hand hovered over the bin, he suddenly wondered. He really could have sworn he threw the wrappers away. Slowly, he peered into the bin; there was a large, grey-white wad filling the bin. He didn’t remember seeing that there when he’d thrown away the wrappers. Hadn’t the bin been empty?

Min-ho frowned and, reaching in, he pinched the strange thing with two fingers, lifting it out to figure out what it was.

Sopping wet and ice cold, the dirty women’s rugby uniform dangled from his hand over the trash can. Min-ho let out a gasp and dropped it; it fell back into the bin with a wet smack.

He backed up, his heart hammering in his chest, the sandwich wrappers still clutched in his hand. But then, logic took over. This must be a prank. A stupid prank.

“… whoever’s messing with me, it’s not funny!” he called. There was no answer. “…I don’t believe in ghosts!” he added firmly.

Again, there was no answer. But there was movement. The cards on the table suddenly scattered as if blown by a gust of wind.

Min-ho looked over sharply, then walked to the table, but still, he felt no draft. The cards were scattered all over the floor, face-down, except for one: the Queen of Hearts.

“I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts,” repeated Min-ho softly, under his breath, bending down to scoop up the cards and put them back on the table.

From the hallway, there was another clatter, the fire extinguisher again. Min-ho rose and went to fetch it, feeling both anxious and annoyed at these small, repeated inconveniences. 

But when he got to the hallway, the fire extinguisher was still securely fastened to the wall. Nothing was out of place. But the polished tile floor, which had moments ago been clean, was now covered in muddy puddles of water. Min-ho crouched and touched one of the puddles with his finger; it was freezing to the touch. He jerked away and straightened, looking uncomfortable, but he forced himself to sound unbothered.

“Okay, ha-ha, very funny, guys! Very good prank! But a little much, don’t you think? … I’m going to go down to the cantina to get some dinner to bring back. Do you want anything? I’m coming right back; I don’t believe in ghosts!”

No one answered.

Min-ho took a deep breath before forcing himself to walk down the long hallway toward the lobby. His feet made some splashing noises as he walked through the puddles. The ripples distorted the reflection of the lights, casting dancing, ethereal shapes over the walls and ceiling. Distant thunder rumbled; rain was forecast for the night.

Min-ho did not believe in ghosts, but Min-ho needed to go. …just for a few minutes. …just for a quick bite to eat before it began raining. That was what he told himself. He was coming back. He did not believe in ghosts.

When he came to the lobby, he forced himself to look at the mural. It was the same as always, the smiling team of fifteen girls hugging each other merrily, their captain in the middle. Min-ho gazed at the image for several long seconds until he was sure there was nothing at all to be scared of, and then turned to the mailroom to check his box and see if anything had come for him. Nothing had. 

He turned back to the lobby just as another, even closer roll of thunder sounded; all at once, the lights flickered dramatically and then snapped off.

Min-ho’s breath caught in his throat. He was not scared of the dark, but the mailroom was pitch-black, and he hurried into the lobby, where at least he might get some light from the glass doors to the outside and from the red glow of the exit sign.

A flash of lightning illuminated the lobby just as he stepped into it, and he saw, at once, something had changed. The mural no longer depicted fifteen smiling women; now, they stood military-straight, their expressions completely flat and serious, each one with a raised hand, pointing out… pointing at him. And there were only fourteen; the space in the middle, where the captain should have been, was completely empty.

Min-ho panicked. He turned and, no longer caring about proving anything, ran. But he was only halfway to the door when the lightning flashed, and, all of a sudden, his way was blocked. He slammed into someone, something as tough as a brick wall, and he went reeling back, falling onto his butt and skinning his hands. He looked up from the floor; looming over him was the captain from the mural, smiling broadly like she had been in the portrait, a wet rugby uniform clinging to her body, her soaking hair hanging limply around her face and dripping to the floor.

“Did you just try to tackle me?” she asked, her head tilting slowly to the side in amusement, just a little too far. “Fat chance, little boy. I’m one of the tighthead props, and I’m the best in the state. I know how to take a tackle. We’re going to win this year, you know.”

Min-ho was shaking like a leaf; he couldn’t even get to his feet. He scuttled backward like a crab, away from the door but away from her.

She took several steps forward, her cleats clacking on the hard floor. If she was a ghost, then she was the most solid ghost Min-ho had ever heard of.

“Where are you going? You’re not intimidated by me, are you?” She sounded hurt like Min-ho was rejecting her, and he was; he wanted nothing more than to get far, far away. The air in the room had dropped several degrees, and his arms had broken out into goosebumps; with every passing second, it was getting more and more frigid.

He kept moving back, but he was stopped suddenly, bumping into something thick and cold. A leg!

He looked up; another girl was standing over him, smiling down, her hair dripping onto his face. He squealed and threw himself forward onto his hands and knees to crawl away, but the woman behind him crouched and grabbed one of his ankles. He scrambled, clawing uselessly at the floor as she dragged him back. 

Lightning flashed; the portrait on the wall showed only a handful of girls now. But the lobby was growing crowded. Min-ho was no longer alone; a group of women in matching white uniforms was crowding in to smile brazenly at him.

“We get so lonely here sometimes; it’s nice for someone to stay with us, for once. Have you come to wish us luck before the big game?” asked one.

“We could use a man’s touch. We’ve been so busy this season, none of us have had any time for ourselves,” said another.

“It’s a real shame for us Zetas; we’ve been so dedicated to team practice we haven’t had any time at all to play with the boys. Yet,” said a third.

“We deserve a reward; we’ve worked so hard, and we’re about to go compete. One night of fun will do us some good!” declared the captain.

All fifteen of them were grinning wildly, their faces frozen just as they were in the portrait on the wall, but now they were manifest, and Min-ho was helpless. Surrounded, he was boxed in and forced to move back into the building. The doors to the outside, to his salvation, disappeared as the team pushed him forward into the hallway, deeper into the building, and toward the residential dorms that he had once thought were so safe.

They were not just women; they were athletes, and Zetas, too. Every one of them was a powerhouse, and Min-ho felt small and weak as they conveyed him along. The door to his dorm opened, and they shoved him inside, following, crowding the room and leaving a trail of water all over the floor in their wake. Their skin was icy to the touch; hands pushed Min-ho’s back and chest and arms, and sharp fingers plucked at his shirt and pants. He tried to push them away, a scream caught in his throat, but there were too many of them.

One seized a fistful of his shirt while two others grabbed the waist of his pants.

“No! No! What are you going to do? Let me go!” he pleaded, struggling; one of them grabbed him by the waist and actually lifted him off the ground, and two of them yanked down his pants. The one who had his shirt was pulling, and he heard it tear; in an instant, he was stripped to only his underwear. He wrapped his arms uselessly around himself, shivering.

“Are you cold? We can warm you up,” said one.

“I’m cold, too. Can you help me?” asked another, peeling her wet shirt from her body. Beneath it, her skin was pale, so pale, an expanse of bone-white with a hint of blue.

“P-please l-l-let me g-go. I b-believe now,” chattered Min-ho.

“You believe in us? That’s so sweet! We can’t wait to win the championship,” said the captain, loosening her own clothes. Her pants fell to the floor with a waterlogged plop; everywhere, the heavy, soaking clothes were being discarded. 

“But a little luck never hurt. We need kisses. For luck!” said one of the girls and the rest all giggled, their grins never changing.

“No, please–” begged Min-ho as a few of them grabbed his underwear. He tried to push away their hands, but they quickly divested him of his last piece of clothing, leaving him naked, the only warm body in the room. They gazed at his living flesh hungrily, moving in like a pack of hyenas. 

“You don’t understand, little boy. We need this. We need this,” growled the captain; her voice was low and angry, but she was still grinning. “We can’t die virgins. We’re Zetas. It would be a terrible tragedy if we died without ever knowing a man, wouldn’t it?”

“B-but you’re already d-d-d-d–” stammered Min-ho. He couldn’t bring himself to finish. And it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. The team had already made up their minds.

Despite their brilliant white smiles, their eyes were hard and angry, furious at the injustice of being robbed of their right as Zetas. Most of them had died virgins, and they clearly resented this cruel fate. Several of them grabbed Min-ho’s limbs and, effortlessly, as a team, they lifted him off the ground; he struggled, whimpering, as they carried him to the bed– his bed!– and dropped him onto the mattress. The crowd of naked women stood menacingly over him; a few grabbed his ankles, spreading him out like an offering, and the captain swung her legs over him, straddling him with a sigh of relief from her pale, pale lips.

“It’s been so many years. No one ever comes to see us anymore; we only come here a few nights every year, you know,” she said, tracing a finger down Min-ho’s chest. She wriggled her hips, adjusting herself, and then grasped his cock. He gasped at the shock of cold, but she was already pumping it, jacking him off, trying to force him to get hard. And though her grip was ice-cold and inhumanely strong, it was practiced. She was, after all, a Zeta sister; to his horror, Min-ho could feel himself getting stiff.

“No, please, you c-can’t!” he begged.

“Can’t? I’m the captain; I’m about to win the championship; I can do whatever I want!” she announced. Min-ho could not understand these women… no, not women. These spirits, these vengeful spirits who knew of their own demise and yet seemed trapped, too, in the night before their terrible accident. They still thought they could win, though the match was long over; they still thought they could lose their virginities, though that time, too, had passed for them.

The captain, Min-ho realized, was a cheonyeogwisin: not a woman, only the ghostly imprint of one, incomplete and full of rage that her life had been cut short and left unfulfilled.

He thrashed, but the captain of the team had moved up and was pressing the mound of flesh between her legs between his, rubbing his cock against her slit. It was wet, but Min-ho did not know if this was from rainwater or desire or some combination of the two; he had no time to think about it before she had sunk down on him, swallowing his shaft into her neglected virgin hole, tossing back her long, wet hair with a long, loud keen of satisfaction.

The rest of the team held Min-ho’s limbs out, and he lay there like a pinned butterfly as she began to ride him, bouncing her hips over him, fucking herself on his hard-on. He squeezed his eyes shut, lip trembling, unable to escape the sensation of the cold, slippery pressure on his cock; despite how strange and unnatural it was, he couldn’t help but react, his warm, living blood pulsing through his rod. As she sank herself lower and lower onto him, he felt the stirrings of an orgasm in his gut, and arching his back, his toes curling, he cried out and came into her.

The girls who weren’t holding him clapped and cheered and whistled like they were witnessing a point being scored in their beloved game. With a breathless gasp of fulfillment, the captain swung off Min-ho, her pussy dripping with warm, thick cum.

“A perfect creampie!” she announced, high-fiving a few other girls; they were already changing places, a second one taking the captain’s place.

“Wait, no, I can’t– stop! It’s too soon! I can’t!” cried Min-ho, but another was already climbing onto him and grasping his cock, stuffing it into her. The sensation was blinding; Min-ho shook uncontrollably as she began using him, thrusting him forcibly inside her and rolling her hips around.

He cried out, and another leaned over him, pressing her thick, cold breasts into his face to muffle him. It was dark, and he couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t move; he was suffocating under the pair of perfectly-shaped melons, the nipples stiff from the cold. Unable to see or hear or scream, all Min-ho was aware of was his cock and the merciless way it was being used; frenzied by the ejaculate oozing from their leader, the rest of the pack had crowded in. All of his body, hands: they stroked his chest, pinched his nipples, probed his anus, squeezed his balls. He was their plaything, and his protests fell on deaf ears.

Right on the edge of blackness, the one whose breasts were suffocating him pulled away, and he gasped for breath like he was coming up from deep, cold water. Almost immediately, fingers were pressing into his mouth to touch his tongue and stroke his lips; one of them climbed on top of him and sat on his face, settling in with a sigh, and knowing there was only one way out of this, he closed his eyes again and stuck out his tongue, pushing it into the hole that demanded attention.

 

Alone in Spruce Hall, Min-ho became their thrall. For hours they kept him pressed to the bed, taking turns pinning him and climbing onto him. His cock performed valiantly, but it could not possibly satisfy them; they were not human, not really, and their lust was insatiable. They grasped his limp cock and pushed it into their pussies, forcing him to fill them; a few lucky ones got small orgasms out of him, and this always prompted an eruption of celebration at the warmth that filled them. 

By sun-up, Min-ho was a weak, watery mess, his cock bruised and his balls completely wrung out. The whole team had had him, one way or another, their actions getting more and more desperate as the minutes ticked by.

But when the first pre-dawn glimmer of light pierced through the window, finally, the last one pulled herself off of Min-ho’s body, his cock slithering out of her with a soft slurping noise.

“It’s morning,” she observed sadly. For the first time since their arrival, none of them was smiling. They all turned to the window, staring, their grins gone, their wet hair hanging limply. 

“We have to go. We’ll be late for the bus,” said the captain.

She leaned over Min-ho and pressed a soft, slow kiss to his lips. “For luck,” she said, turning.

“…but you don’t believe in that, do you?” said another, and a few giggled. 

The captain turned and began to walk out the door; one by one, they filed after her, still naked, their hips swaying, their athletic bodies unaltered and untired from a night of furious fucking.

Shaking, Min-ho tried to rise, but all of his muscles were ruined. He fell to the floor. Scattered everywhere were the soaked rugby uniforms, soggy mounds… evidence.

Min-ho gathered his clothes weakly, shakily, and crawling, he emerged from his room, pulling on his clothes as he went. He followed the trail of water; it led out to the lobby.

There, just as it always had been, the portrait of the team was on the wall, every girl smiling out, frozen once again in their eternal memorial, their faces fixed forever in bright, happy grins.

Dawn broke, and the lobby was flooded with light. A pair of students, looking tired but cheerful, were approaching; they pulled open the door and entered, laughing and talking about the fun night they’d had, and spied Min-ho on the floor.

“…Min? Damn, dude, what happened to you?” asked one, rushing over to pull Min-ho to his feet. “You look wrecked. Did you end up going to a party after all?”

“…come here. Come here, Claire! You have to see something!” choked out Min-ho, clinging weakly to Claire’s shoulders and gesturing frantically toward the hall. “I did it; I proved– let me just show you! Come here! Careful– it’s slippery!”

She raised an eyebrow; she had no idea what Min-ho meant. It wasn’t slippery at all. But Min-ho seemed so worked up she helped him back to his room anyway, reassuring him that it was okay.

Min-ho threw open the door of his room and pointed to the floor, about to yell, “See?!” 

But the wet jerseys were all gone. The floor was bone-dry, all evidence gone. There were no wet clothes, no puddles… well, not puddles of water, anyway. There were a few splatterings of ejaculate on the floor.

The girl’s nose wrinkled. “Ew. Min-ho, this is a really weird way to try and impress me.” She dropped him onto the bed. “I mean, I’m flattered, I guess, but it’s kinda early for this kind of thing, don’t you think?”

She turned to leave.

Min-ho sat on his bed, staring at the floor in shock. It was gone. All evidence. All of it.

Except–

He looked up. There was still a camera mounted on the wall, pointing to his bed. He had evidence, after all.

Slowly, weakly, he rose and hobbled over to pull the camcorder down. He looked down at the display; there was a blinking light that indicated that the tape inside was full. He gazed at it for a long, long time, then pressed ERASE.

He didn’t want anyone to see what had happened to him.

Later, other students from Spruce Hall would ask to see the tapes and would ask Min-ho if he’d managed to prove, one way or another, that there were or were not ghosts. And Min-ho would tell them brusquely that the camcorders had failed to capture anything at all.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he continued to insist. But the next year, he moved out of Spruce Hall, and whenever freshmen asked him whether or not it was safe to stay there on Halloween night, Min-ho would tell them they’d be better off visiting the Zeta haunted house or going to a party on campus, instead.

---

The room was quiet as Jung finished his story. The dorm was dark, the other boys sitting around staring, enraptured, at Jung. Harry had pulled out a joint and discreetly lit it, but even though they were inside and smoking wasn’t allowed, no one said anything.

“…wow,” said Oz, finally.

“How did you know all that stuff happened to Min?” asked Mike curiously.

“I told you. He recorded it,” said Jung with a shrug.

“You said he erased the tapes,” pointed out Harry.

“…well, he told me about it,” amended Jung.

“Plot hole, plot hole!” chided Oz, waving a finger at him. “If you’re going to try to tell us that a story is real, Jung, you have to make sure that you can back it up. For example, my story has witnesses.”

“Oh, please, you’re telling us a ‘true’ story?” asked Harry sarcastically, making bunny ears with his fingers.

“It is a true story. It happened my freshman year, and there are still other seniors on campus who remember,” said Oz, reaching for the flashlight. “Ghosts are scary, I guess, but mine is about something even scarier.”

“A monster?” guessed Harry.

“A demon?” guessed Jung.

“Rachel?” guessed Mike.

“…close,” said Oz to Mike with a grin, angling the light toward his face. “A woman scorned.”

– To be continued… –